


Sister

by fearofsilence



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Papa Bear Hopper, alternate title: Hop Adopts Another Daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 20:45:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16562840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearofsilence/pseuds/fearofsilence
Summary: Hop meets Kali.





	Sister

A motorcycle is not a welcome sight.

Not when the sight comes at the end of a long day dealing with crotchety old farmers and busybody neighbors, parked outside of your house where your young daughter is alone.

His only solace is that she’s far from defenseless. At least there’s that.

But there’s still the thing with the motorcycle. It’s relatively small and sleek black – shiny but worn, probably less than a decade old. Jim’s never been much of a motorcycle guy, much to his teenage self’s chagrin. Any maker’s mark has been pried off of the bike’s body. In fact, there are no obvious identifying markers on it at all – no license plate either.

His heart kicks up a bit. This doesn’t spell anything good if the past is any indication. All he can think is: she’s in there by herself.

Two and a half years. Two and a half years she’s been in his care and he still lives every day with that little niggling fear. That one day he’ll come home and she’ll be gone. Or worse.

By the time he reaches the door, his heart is hammering against his ribs. He twists the knob, but the door is locked. He can’t tell if that’s a good sign or not. He does their secret knock.

Nothing.

Again, a little more frantic. He doesn’t want to freak out yet if it’s nothing.

He hears socked feet shuffling along the floorboards. That is a good sign.

And then El is there, a sleepy smile on her face. She unlocks the door and lets him in. She’s alone; the living room is empty, but he notices a leather jacket draped over the back of the sofa that definitely doesn’t belong to either of them.

“Sorry,” she says, and locks the door behind him. Jim glances between her and her closed bedroom door in confusion, then at the strange jacket. El steps up behind the couch and places her hand on it. Her face is solemn as she says, “Sister.”

Sister? Hop thinks. Who is 'sister'?

Before he has a chance to question her, however, her door creaks open and a girl appears. She’s hardly as tall as El herself, with dark skin and wild hair. Her clothes harken back to El’s brief goth phase nearly two years earlier, and there’s a bandage on her right cheek, a dark spot of blood already seeping through the gauze.

Sister? Why has El never mentioned her?

El looks at him with an expression he interprets as ‘don’t ask.’ It dawns on him then that the girl must be another one of Brenner’s _experiments_.

“Does sister have a name?”

El nods, but it’s the girl who speaks. “Kali,” she says. Her voice sounds hoarse, and there is an indeterminable accent to it that Jim doesn’t recognize, as if she’s traveled a lot.

“Kali,” he repeats, testing the name. She drops her chin in the beginnings of an affirmative gesture but winces when the bandage tugs on her wound. “What happened there?”

She glances at El. There’s a slight panic in her eyes and just like that - whatever it is, Jim doesn’t want to know.

“Nevermind. It’s none of my business,” he says. “But you might want to change the bandage.”

She touches her fingertips to her cheek gingerly and El rushes over, pulling Kali’s hand out of the way to examine it herself. She nods decisively and drags the girl – her sister, he guesses – to the little bathroom.

They leave the door open, but it still feels like an invasion of privacy to glance in and ask if they’re hungry. Instead of doing that, he hovers awkwardly just out of sight before just deciding to go grab dinner out of the truck anyway. Hopefully, they’ll be finished by the time he gets back. And hopefully, they’re not very hungry, because he’s not sure if he’s brought enough for three.

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't my usual Stonathan, but I found it in my docs from back in February and decided to share it. Tell me what you think!


End file.
